Go North

by Emanuele Biestro

Sometimes it happens even to the best communicators to stumble across complicated notions to be explained to the mainstream. This is not surely the situation of the Kairòs Studio, a group of people who aim to talk in a simple, funny and pro way mankind's challenges towards a sustainable future. Indeed, they have been called to create a cartoon movie explaining how the CO2 capture and storage technology works, a project carried on by some researchers at the University Centre in Longyearbyen, on the isle of Svalbard (Norway).

«When they contacted us to create a flash animation featuring the Longyearbyen CO2 lab's carbon capture project we jumped at the idea, but we were also conscious of the difficulties and hard work involved: to explain a complex scientific/technical project to groups of school children would be challenging» say on the project website Daniele Di Domenico and Simone Cau, who take care respectively of the video and multimedia section and of the animation within the Kairòs Studio.

Concerning this, the employees of the Kairòs Studio had the perfect intuition about creating a story featuring a little molecule of carbon dioxide named Dioxy, set first in a coal mine, then through the mineral mining and the combustion until the CO2 storage cave, where the setting is composed by an arena in which all the other CO2 molecules are entertained by a show lasting 12 thousand years: this is how long it takes for the CO2 to be stored!

«Working for a public composed almost entirely by 10 year old children really helped us because it is necessary to simplify a lot of things in order to communicate to children and let the fantasy go», says Daniele, who stressed also the work on the soundtrack «entirely original and of our own, with pieces and songs, very catchy, to impress the audience». The result is a 23 minute lasting video, divided into 8 episodes, published two by two each Monday, starting from February, the 6th.

«From the very beginning we conceived the video as a double-faced tool, very flexible. Indeed, it could be seen as a movie during conferences, shows and similar "live" events, otherwise it could be web broadcast through the episodes» says Daniele. The episodes will be available on the Kairòs studio YouTube channel and on the Facebook page.

The belief is to have done a great job for the children, hoping this would be the same for the adults asking to learn more.

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Naked for an environmental cause

by Silvia Musso

Is it another exploitation of the female image, or an effective media campaign? What is the line between mere use of a naked female body and an artistic nude used for a noble cause? This is the dispute that has turned around the Greenpeace campaign "I want my child to know the forests", which depicts a naked pregnant woman.

The Uruguayan actress Natalia Oreiro, famous in Latin countries such as soap operas interpreter and environmentalist, has made an appeal for Greenpeace for the protection of forests and has "given" to the cause her belly.

The environmental NGO is not sparing in the use of strong images,but this time the choice – a naked pregnant woman – has been at the same level of previous campaigns?The pose of South American actress is clearly a quotation from the famous picture of a pregnant Demi Moore, then copied by many other celebrities.So there is nothing new.

The body of a pregnant woman, besides being the sublimation of feminine beauty, is certainly highly symbolic as a hope bringer for a prosperous and better future, so the choice seems more than appropriate. But if you look at the picture, what is striking is not the belly, which should be the main character of this campaign, but rather the flirtatious look that makes the testimonial nothing more than an object of sexual desire, a helpless and weak woman. Nothing to do with a proud Mother Nature image that deserves to be respected.

We have almost exhausted the available space questioning about the form rather than the content of the campaign - the protection of forests - and perhaps this is precisely the weak aspect of the campaign. Even among Internet people, who have left comments on the web, the focus is on the beauty of the actress and the more or less abuse of the female nude and the message itself fades into the background.

We remind that this campaign was born inside a precise social and political framework. A government forest bill “Ley de Bosques”, supported by more than 1.5 million Argentinean citizens, was approved by the Argentinean Congress in 2007 to protect native forests. Despite the massive civil society movement and political will, governance is still an issue in the region and deforestation rates keep rising because of logging permits and cattle expansion.

Mrs Oreiro, inspired by the desire for her son to know the fecundity of the forests, lent her weight to the call to action to Governor of Santiago del Estero to halt forest destruction, revoke illegal logging permits and give future generations a chance to discover the wonders of the forests.

We hope that the unborn child, symbol of next generations, will be proud of his mother's environmental engage.

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We are 7 billion people!

by Eleonora Anello

On October, 31, 2011, Danica May Camacho was born in the Philippines. Danica is not just a newborn baby but also the citizen number 7 billion of the world, as said the UN global counter. In fact, “baby-7-billion”, who won a scholarship, is the icing on the cake of a broad communicative action.

Early last year, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) launched "7-billion actions - A global movement for all humanity", a campaign that will continue throughout the whole 2012 aimed at highlighting those positive action carried out by individuals or organizations for facing global development-related challenges. By sharing these experiences in an open forum, the initiative aims at fostering communication and collaboration across a more and more populated and interdependent world, as evidenced by the report "The 7 billion world: people, opportunities", which brings to light an unstoppable urbanization. The study photographed a world characterized by great mobility (in particular migrations from south to north and, within south countries, from rural to urban areas. Hoping to improve economic conditions, this migration will cause a progressive wild urbanization, which ultimately affect the environment and the quality of life of the population.

7 themes were identified in order to engage and to inform the public about these issues: poverty and social injustice, empowerment of women, reproductive health, youth, elderly, environment, urbanization.

Joining the movement is very simple and you can do it in several ways. In addition to stories, which can be personal or involve other people, NGOs and/or companies who committed in favor of humanity, you can try to compose your personal version of the song "United", anthem anybody can interpret with personal style and instruments. The Playing for Change Foundation will select some versions for being part of a final mix.

There is even the "1 of 7 Billion" short films contest, organized by the Foundation 10.12.48. Cinema, as well as music, becomes a powerful mean, a universal language ​​particularly suitable for spreading the debate on crucial issues. Furthermore, cinema and music can give a more human face to those challenges the planet (and especially the environment) is facing.

For fresh updates you can tune in on the most popular social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, or read the blog. This is an all-round campaign, which leaves nothing to chance and which also employs the most classic communication resources such as brochures and fact sheets (addressed both inside and outside the United Nations), posters and videos. To ease individuals’ actions, has also been formulated a model of letter.

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Farmville really exists! Be a Cyber-farmer

by Annalisa Tancredi

Once in his life anyone thought of leaving everyday life to start a new one in the country, growing sweet plants in his own garden. How many people would prefer to pick fruits and seed tomatoes rather than wriggle out of shelves and shopping carts to the rhythm of cash beeping?

Grow the Planet is a new social network, the Farmville of the real world, bound to become the new mean for sharing experiences among agriculture’s lovers and among those who want to transform a balcony into a mini-greenhouse for vegetables. The project is made in Italy and has been already approved by H-Farm, italian venture incubator, which has invested 70 thousand dollars in it. The portal was launched during TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, the most important competition for web startups.

Users can improve agricultural skills using a set of tools: on-line planning their garden, consulting vegs information sheets, exchanging tips and sharing demo video; they can also monitor the climate for protecting their greens in case of occasional showers.

In addition, the geolocalization of the garden has an added value for cyber farmers because it allows them not only to cultivate friendships and join in local communities to exchange seeds and vegetables, but also to get closer to potential customers, promoting the direct producer-consumer relationship, and facilitating the creation of joint purchasing groups.

"Grow the Planet is all about helping the home farmer, either expert or beginner, to build up their own garden. We would like to show how fun and easy is for everyone to grow organic vegetables on their own, in order to enjoy better food while doing something good for the environment" explains Gianni Gaggiani, the founder.

Grow the Planet highlights the need for the social networks for an evolutionary leap towards qualification in sector: users targeted, specialized contents and greater connection to real life. Eating healthy food "made in my garden", in fact, is good both for people’s health and for safeguarding the food chain and the biodiversity of our planet.

“It’s time to grow up and make a better world”… with rakes and mouse!

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Czech communication experiments

by Silvia Musso

It's been over one year since we introduced to Envi readers the original campaigns realized in the Czech Republic by EKO KOM, a company that deals with the collection, recovery and disposal of packaging waste throughout the country.

What has happened since then? It is time to look East Europe and "go back" to Prague to listen to our friend Šárka Nováková, head of communication sector, who explains us the current communication projects targeted to Czech citizens.

It is active since last summer the campaign "Of course" that differs from those we are used to because it is direct to people who already make waste collection to thank and encourage them to continue their good behavior. There are, in fact, many myths that accompany the habit of recycling, but EKO KOM wants to invite responsible citizens not to be misled.

In order for the campaign to be properly targeted and adjusted, its content is being prepared on the basis of the results of a survey. This determines the current behaviour and number of those separating waste and also of those who never separated waste or stopped separation for some reason. It followed from it, amongst other things, that people who separate waste do not feel sufficiently motivated to continue doing so in the future. In a great many cases, they are confused by myths that occur around separation and recycling of waste, such as that separated waste ends up in a landfill anyway or that this is just a passing fashion that will soon disappear.

Consequently, this year EKO KOM has decided to overturn the commonest citizenship's myths in an attractive and enjoyable way, realizing some films. The individual episodes can be viewed in www.samosebou.cz from August to October, and there are the most conventional film genres, intended to attract the broadest possible audience. They include westerns, kung-fu, comedies, film noir and gangster films. Waste separation is not the main subject here; it is introduced into the story very unobtrusively but nonetheless integrally.

«The heroes of genre films, who combat myths in an original manner on the web site, are primarily employed to overturn myths and promote the subject of waste separation and recycling - Nováková explains - Compared to previous years, we are directing a far greater proportion of our activities towards the online environment, where an increasing fraction of the population is active and where it is possible to work longer and better with the user. Success is arriving as showe by our website that saw already over 100,000 visitors».

EKO KOM is experimenting new original and appealing strategies to communicate the waste separation and recycling. Its campaigns show the dynamic of a young business made by young people. Administrators, politicians and communicators could be inspired to modernize current campaigns that are often repetitive, limited in the media used and in messages proposed, which we citizens we are already used.

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GOF: ´cause we want to change the world not the climate

by Irene Gozzelino

The problem of climate change is, of course, a global problem, but this is not heard and addressed in the same way in the different countries, for different economic needs and development, for more or less marked impact of its consequences, for more pressing priorities. But if some are more "guilty" of the fever of our planet and there is one who is more the victim, the both have a common fate: they are going inexorably toward an era of great changes in the biosphere, with respect to which man, among all living creatures, seems to be most vulnerable. How to manifest the alarm and the will to act? How to communicate in one language, if not made of the same words, made of the same concepts?

The project Grounding Our Future has been carried out for: a period of one year, funded by the European Union within the Youth in Action program, involved young volunteers from Mauritius, Vietnam, India, Italy and Germany and ended October 1, in Rome, at the City of Utopia.

The project took place in several stages: as a first approach, all participants presented their country and their views on climate change over the ten-day seminar in Karnitz, led by experienced staff of KMGNE, at this stage "preparatory" was followed by another, shorter, in Berlin, and later exchanges: each volunteer spent a month in which the host country involved in a GOF is expressed in a kaleidoscope of activities such as awareness campaigns, seminars, riding a bicycle.

The Italian partner is the International Civil Service, whose the person in charge for the national coordination, Roberto Carraro, has kindly responded to some questions:

Why the SCI has decided to participate in the project GOF? What were the aspects of "attractiveness" of the project?

We thought the project with the idea to disprove the stereotype that sustainable practices and respect for the environment are a feature only of the countries of the North. We wanted to pursue a project based on the mutual and horizontally exchange between north and south of the world, to feel the commitment to environmental justice and climate as a factor that unites us rather than divides. Another objective was to remind the world how the South is tragically hit by global warming, although this is mainly caused by the industrialized countries.

How can this type of projects to develop awareness towards environmental issues "burning" of our era?They can do that to the extent that they create real participation, and proximity to a range of issues by young people from all corners of the planet that have been involved in the project and aren’t never be passive spectators. This is what we have always tried Grounding Our Future.

Why do you think that the media products and the organized campaigns in various countries can be effective?

Why do they live the participation of those who created them, making them attractive and real, because they reflect what the project was, as content, such as reports, such as actions on the territory.

For a taste of GOF, The Proposal is the video that you find accompanying this article, for everything else there is a website and a Facebook page.

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What’s up with the EWWR 2011?

by Francesca Morra

The European Week for Waste Reduction is proceeding at full speed and just the impetus of public’s will, led the Italian organizers (Aica and the Italian Organizing committee) to extend to 2 November the deadline by when sending the application forms for joining the EWWR 2011.

The goal is to achieve, and why not overcome, more than 600 accessions, thereby exceeding the 585 counted last year in Italy. The Secretariat said that the Italian validated actions and officially registered are more than 370, but many are still being validated. From this point of view, the organizers are very positive and they expect the boom of the arrival of membership cards around November, 1st, in a perfect Italian-style. Participating in a large number is important to spread what the "Week" wants to convey: “You can reduce waste, concretely and simply, by implementing daily measures" as stated in the last press release and as evidenced by the Web Video on YouTube and Facebook.

This spirit of sharing objectives led to plan new common actions across Europe. These initiatives cover several categories: reduction of waste from the food, reuse and repair, reduction of waste from packaging. Each of these actions involves the actual weighing of waste saved by acting as shown in data sheets: organizing a waste-free tea party, setting up sustainable canteens and collecting repair and recovery potential waste for other uses. In this way you can actually see how everyday actions can dramatically reduce the production of waste.

All those who want to keep themselves posted about the European Week for Waste Reduction developments can visit the official website and the Facebook page, with the linked event. Few days remain before the new deadline for joining the European Week for Waste Reduction. The Secretariat (segreteria@assaica.org) is ready to enlist anyone who wants to join in, associations, organizations, administrations, schools, businesses etc. Participation is open to all those who spread the waste reduction goal as the new war on waste. We therefore expect a lot of action accompanied by original and effective communication campaigns which will provide notice in future articles.

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